At the end of the day though, ingredients are just ingredients with certain energy values.
If you eat too much "whole" food, you're still gonna be fat.
Respectfully, this line of thought is completely misguided.
Yes, I know in chemistry a calorie is a unit of measure for energy.
But if this remained true, as it relates to the human consumption of food, how come one feels like a goddamn sloth after a double bacon cheeseburger, large fry and large strawberry shake? We both know you aren’t jumping on a row Peter puffer after consuming that and busting out thousands of meters. Just aren’t.
It’s a lot more difficult to over-eat whole food. You suggest a similar bloated outcome which is simply not the case. Whole foods — organic, non-gmo — aren’t inundated with artificial chemicals. Some of which are designed to be addictive appetite enhancers that keep one eating and eating. This alone explains the lower obesity rate on the right-side of the tracks in white Wakanda.
Back to the issue of energy in and of food. The chemistry definition is too myopic. I think of energy as defined in the book Power vs Force by David Hawkins. The energy available in any whole food often exceeds the ascribed, wrote caloric value. Any food chock full of chemical processing does the opposite in practice.
Power vs. Force: Hawkins MD/PHD, David R.: 9781401945077: Amazon.com: Books